Siege of Atlanta
by Stardust's Revenge
Summary: Or, Five Things Sherman Broke and One He Fixed. (TMPASS)


**This should be fun. *flexes wrists outwards***

 **In case the joke wasn't immediately obvious, it's named after General Tecumseh** ** _Sherman_** **'s rather destructive Siege of Atlanta. But without further ado...onto the fic!**

Mr. Peabody sighed in a combination of apprehension and simple fatigue from the day as he tucked his phone number into his adopted son's shirt pocket. Sherman, five years old, vibrated in delight and started bouncing lightly on one foot.

"Sherman, if you get lost, I'd like you to give this number and your name to the nearest adult, alright?"

"Yes, Mr. Peabody!"

"You already know to test the temperature of the playground equipment, I presume? It's been in the sun for quite awhile...perhaps the jungle gym would be safer."

" _Yes,_ Mr. Peabody!"

Seeing Sherman's impatience, the beagle bit his lower lip and surveyed the area, looking for any other potential warnings to note before sending him off.

"Well, then. I think this should go without saying, but please don't tumble off that back wall the others are bouncing tennis balls off of….a fall from such a height has at least a one in five chance of killing you."

"I think I'll be okay, Mr. Peabody!"

"In that case...be safe. I'll be with the homeschool group if you need anything."

At the last note, the redhead ran into the fray.

################################

After playing by the edge of the trees with the dinosaur models he'd brought for a few minutes, the boy noticed that the girl by the dugout had _army men_.

His models were definitely awesome-Christine had given the kits to him once with a wink and a half-hearted order not to tell Mr. Peabody, and they even glowed in the dark-but dinosaurs and army men would be _really_ cool. So, with the executive decision made and, after a second's hesitation, well thought out-" _Yep. I'm gonna play with her."_ -he made his way over, laid out his dinosaurs, and stuck out his hand.

"Hi! I'm Sherman. Do you wanna play?"

A grin spread across her freckled countenance, and she returned the gesture, holding out a cinnamon-toned hand, the wrist encapsulated with what appeared to be some sort of armband.

"My name's Gabriella, but you can call me Gaz. Do you have a T-rex?"

"Yeah! What's your wrist thing for?"

She drew herself up to her full height and brushed a strand of chocolate-brown hair back from her face.

"It's to help me breathe and stuff, since I have _cystic fibrosis_. So my lungs are filled with mucus! Blehhh!"

He grimaced. "Ew."

Gaz giggled. "I know, right? If I can play with your T-rex, though, I'll trade you my bazooka guy. He's the best, 'cause he's only got one shot but it could probably take out a truck!"

Sherman stuck out his tongue.

"Nah, the lookout's the best guy because the other guys are going to get ambushed without him. He gets to tell everybody what's coming, like time-traveling dinosaurs!"

She shrugged.

"But then the time-traveling dinosaurs eat the lookout guy."

"...They've all got their drawbacks."

####################################

Half an hour later, the two had concocted a complex story ending with the soldiers lodging a colony on the ruins of the landscape and learning to speak the language of the behemoths themselves.

Such a peace, however, was not to be seen between Gaz and Sherman.

"The lookout is stupid!" she spat, propping her elbows on the table, "He's almost as stupid as the chicken dinosaur!"

"Parasaurolophus."

"But he still doesn't do anything! If he sees the other army, all he can do is yell at the other guys!"

"Exactly. That makes him the military general."

"In real life, nobody looks out to see what's coming! Do you know what's on the other side of the Ball Wall?"

"No, because Mr. Peabody said not to climb it. Probably just offices and streets anyway."

"Nobody knows what's behind it because _nobody cares enough to go."_

Sherman pouted and rolled up his sleeves.

"Okay, fine. The lookout is the best part of any military and I can prove it."

Her eyes widened as he turned away and looked towards the rough surface. It wasn't meant to be climbed on, certainly, but there was some jagged bricks sticking out by the sides forming a kind of staircase, and a series of footholds worn into the wall by the volley of kicks, scuffs, and tennis balls assaulted on it over the years.

"Sherman! Wait! That wasn't really a dumb-off! You're gonna fall!"

Her words were lost on deaf ears.

######################################

Gaz screamed, but the phlegm caught in her throat caught it to a rough gurgle.

. Running into the group of homeschool parents, she did the next best thing.

She snatched another girl's Powerpuff toy.

Promptly, the other-a tiny dark-pigtailed child of about three-began to cry, raising the attention of the others in a heartbeat.

" _Gabriella! ¡Dale a esa niña su juguete!"_ ("Gabriella! Give that girl back her toy!") her mother nipped, chiding her gently. She promptly threw it back, using her free hand to wave towards the wall and coughing up mucus.

"Where's Sherman's mom?"

Mr. Peabody sighed once more and raised a paw.

"I am his father and legal guardian, yes."

"He's gonna fall off the wall." she stated bluntly.

Mr. Peabody's heart pounded in his chest as he ran towards the area in direction.

####################

The redhead chuckled, holding his arms out for balance once reaching the apex of his climb, and took a few shaky steps along the way.

"O-kay….looks like it's just a dusty old abandoned lot." he called back, "There's an old car back here, and a few broken bottles, but it's dumb anyway. _Now_ are you convinced the lookout is the best?"

He carefully turned to look back, shifting his glasses higher on his nose.

"Gaz?"

" _Sherman!"_

"Oh! Hey, Mr. P.!" he said,waving, "You're not that happy, are you?"

"No, I most certainly am not." he said, heart pounding in his furry chest, "I beg of you, get _down_ from there before you break your neck!"

"Aw, alright." he resigned, spinning around and setting his foot down carefully towards the way he had come.

Mr. Peabody breathed a sigh of relief until a moment later when he noticed the untied laces on Sherman's shoes. Involuntarily, he yelped in warning.

On the wall, Sherman's ankle twisted, shocked at the sound, and he fell back to the lot.

########################

"Owwwww…." he said, tears brimming in his eyes. The boy had mainly fallen onto his back, although his ankle was inflamed with pain and bent at an angle he had only ever seen in cartoons.

"I said, _owwwwww…._ " Sherman reiterated, surveying his surroundings and finally bursting into full-on wails. It wasn't _fair_ at all. Mr. Peabody had just told him not to fall, hadn't he? And he wouldn't have, anyway, if it wasn't for that yelp.

When he finally saw his guardian, shadowed by the worried faces of the other parents and his friend, he was immediately thrown into the passenger's seat of their car without question, and, as punishment, taken to a strange room far away from the penthouse and forced to stay there for weeks on end.

Mr. Peabody never came to visit him.

 _Tier Two_

The most panicked morning of Sherman's life started when he was eight years old.

And it began with Saturday morning cartoons.

It was certainly an earlier time of day, but the redhead had been conditioned through years of love for the simplistic and absurd comic acts to wake up with a jolt around seven and run into the living room, usually with the blankets subconsciously tucked around his shoulders.

Upon arrival that day in particular, he stretched, secured a bowl of cereal, and sat cross-legged in front of the television, and folded the blanket over his lap, where his guardian would always allow him the small privilege of viewing comedy, uninterrupted, for an hour or two.

Onscreen, a lanky ballerina outwitted a short-tempered scientist to Sherman's amusement, and he laughed and straightened his own spectacles in an imitation of the character displayed, bursting once more into a fit of giggling. Just when he settled back, his thumb smudged the lenses.

"Awwww…." he sighed softly, trying halfheartedly to rub them on the edge of his shirt, "Where does Mr. Peabody keep the really soft glasses cloth?"

Pressing MUTE firmly on the television remote, he placed the bowl of cereal in his lap beside him and got lethargically to his feet, unfortunately forgetting the snarl of blankets across his knees.

He tripped across the exiting the room, and, with a final howl, his vision went dark.

#########################

Wincing against the light coming in from the windows, he slowly took his hands away from his eyes and looked down to see a blurred series of floorboards and-was that?

Broken glass.

Broken glass he could see _perfectly_.

His chest tightened, and, with no other viable option, he tucked his knees to his chest and cried.

"Sherman...Sherman, are you alright?" Mr. Peabody called.

The boy gulped back sobs of desperation and made no move to hide the shattered remains of his glasses, only backing into the closet door as a last resort. With a soft series of thumps, Mr. Peabody trotted into the living room, taking only a glance at Sherman to know what was wrong. With a pause, he swept the boy into his paws and hugged him.

"Ssssh...Sherman, it will be alright….we can get you new lenses today, it won't be a problem at all."

"I...I thought you were gonna hate me, you always said not to break my glasses, please don't send me away…."

Mr. Peabody cocked an eyebrow in confusion.

"And where, exactly, would you go?"

He scrubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand and hiccuped weakly.

"Hardrock orphanage….or the Vietnam prison camps…..or wherever bad kids go." Clutching his guardian's shoulders, he looked directly into his eyes with an expression of ice-cold fear.

"Please don't send me away! I'll be good, I'll do anything, I don't want to be the bad timeline….pleasepleaseplease…"

Mr. Peabody hugged him closer and walked his son to his office.

"Sherman, if I could rewrite our story, I'd erase our names from history and carve them into stone instead. I'd rather us be forgotten together….then remembered apart. I could never live rightfully without you, and you should know that my life would never be the same without you in it. You're my beautiful, _beautiful,_ boy, and no well-intentioned mistake could ever change that."

He quieted.

"Forever and always?"

"Forever and always."

 _Tier Three_

The director clapped his hands together.

"That's a wrap! End of the season, everyone!"

The studio was flooded with cheers. Christine, forever the friendliest, pulled the title duo into a hug and squealed.

"I take it I can meet you both at Morgenstern's tonight?" she laughed, dropping them to the floor, squealing again, and doing an impromptu victory dance, "It's going to be so _awe-some,_ we're going to get _ice cream,_ it's going to be _cra-zy,_ we'll even let Sherman get _choco-late!_ "

Sherman stuck out his tongue playfully.

"We're starting the next season with that song. Mr. Leffingwell? Can we start the next season with Christine's ice cream song?"

The series writer vaulted over the edge of the control booth and tucked his pencil behind his ear.

"Not a chance, my boy. Or, at least, ask me in three months."

Twirling the woman in his arms, he laughed and performed an impromptu victory dance of his own.

"So who's treating the technical crew?"

Mr. Peabody tapped Sherman on the shoulder.

"Sherman…" he said with a wink, "I'm just going to double-check some of the filters in the editing booth. I'll catch up with you and Christine at the real penthouse."

His son chuckled and faked a yawn, carding his fingers through his cherry-red hair.

"Yeah, I was just going to tell you that I was about to raid the craft table and play video games at Wheel's house anyway. I'll meet you at Morgenstern's. Nothing to be worried about, of course."

The two spun on their heels and walked opposite directions, each smothering laughter and training their eyes on the other.

###########################

The silver bell outside the ice cream parlor tinkled menacingly and a western harmonica tune drifted through the air as a certain red-headed stranger stepped in and shook the dust off his boots.

Under one arm was a package addressed to a man-or, dog, rather-he meant business with.

At the back booth, the building manager cheered and raised his spoon in greeting.

"Hi, Sherman!"

Sherman chuckled and waved back.

"Hi, Mr. Hobson!"

The server kicked his feet back from the counter, tucked the harmonica back into his pocket, and high-fived the excitable child.

"And _that's_ how you make an entrance." he said.

Sherman slid into the booth and set his colorful gift on the counter, signaling the server for a sundae.

"Mr. Peabody, you open yours first because it took hours on Queens to find the right stores and I didn't have any money so I couldn't get a cab and so I had to trudge for- _ever_ until I could find Peyton's house and take his pony."

Christine looked up from her Shirley Temple.

"Sounds like a good enough reason to me."

Mr. Peabody facepawed.

"And you couldn't have asked him to use his phone and _call_ for a ride from any one of the fifteen eligible cast and crew members?"

He shrugged.

"Taking his horse was faster. Now c'mon, open it!"

The beagle smiled and used one claw to slit the box neatly along the seams, to reveal another box within.

Once he opened that box, another, differently wrapped, package lay inside.

This continued for thirteen boxes, each with wrapping themed after the different episodes.

As soon as the last-a package somehow the same size as the first, decorated a psychedelic time-warped wrapping paper-was broken through, a shipwright's model kit for the HMS Victory was exposed.

Mr. Peabody chuckled. "Aw, Sherman, this is perfect! But I bet you weren't expecting…. _this!"_

With a flamboyant gesture, he pulled a gift of his own from under the seats and set it in front of him. Sherman slid his sundae (a rainbow of flavors-including chocolate-and an un-dog-ly amount of gummy bears, sprinkles, and other saccharine toppings to be seen) to the side and eagerly tore aside the wrapping paper.

"...Only you would make me _think_ to open a present." he said with an air of amusement as he glanced down at the sliding-block puzzle in the wooden surface.

"Me and DaVinci alike, my boy." Mr. Peabody laughed, watching him fiddle with the various wooden gears and levers, "He designed it, but _I_ added the catch."

"There's a catch?" he said, slowly turning a gear a few degrees to the left. A small, barely audible _click_ was heard, and a grin split across his features when he pulled the gear out as a handle, opening the front panel of the box.

"Aw, cool! A model stagecoach! Thanks, Mr. P.!"

The perfect night indeed, with a sadly ephemeral essence of perfection.

################################

"Sherman?" Mr. Peabody called, eyes trained on the ship in his bottle, "Would you mind fetching me my absurdly tiny pliers?"

"Sure, Mr. P!" Sherman chirped, still holding the back wheel to his stagecoach for the few seconds it took to dry while he walked down the stairs to the basement. His guardian's pliers were easily spotted by the splayed contents of the tool kit by his workbench, and he snagged them with his finger and bounced forward.

Unfortunately, it was on that particular step that Mr. Peabody had chosen to leave his signature bow tie, safe from glue and varnish but undoubtedly a tripping hazard that Sherman took.

Although there were only a few stairs down, the boy dropped his fragile carriage, glass bottle of model glue, and pliers in a true comedy of errors. His guardian, sensing the fall, looked warily at his extremely delicate ship-while it could not be argued he didn't love his son with all his heart, he _did_ have a magnetic attraction to breaking things-and looked back to see Sherman spitting out the axle of his project, the scent of glue in the air, both bottle and carriage shattered past recognition.

The requested pliers, however, landed safely clamped in the center of the carriage wheel.

"Sherman! Are you alright?"

The redhead giggled. "Yeah...ow….guess my carriage turned into a pumpkin, huh?"

"On the contrary, perhaps it would be more accurate to say it became a _squash._ " he chuckled, retrieving the pliers, "I must apologize, I'll be sure to get you a new kit when I can."

Sherman sighed, sweeping the remains into his palm and throwing them away.

"Well, as long as I'm down here, can I see how your boat turns out?"

"Of course!" Mr. Peabody said, affixing a mast in place, "On second thought, ah, that's not right…"

An adjustment brought the bottle rolling to the floor, where it crashed.

After a moment's shock, the two burst into laughter.

"I take it we're even now?" Mr. Peabody said, grinning.

Sherman thought for a second, and then chuckled.

"Of course, so long as we're not on _odds_." he replied.

 _Tier Four_

" _Well, I would walk five hundred miles!"_ Sandy sang out.

" _And I would walk five hundred more!"_ Wheels replied, struggling to roll his chair through the muddy hiking trail. Sherman, seeing his discomfort, casually walked up beside him and pushed him ahead.

" _Just to be the man who walks a hundred miles_

 _To show up at your door!"_

Sherman and Gaz finished. Mason clapped, and, with a nod from the others, opened the guitar bridge on his playlist.

" _When I'm lonely, well I know I'm gonna be_

 _I'm gonna be the man who's lonely without you_

 _And when I'm dreaming, well I know I'm gonna dream_

 _I'm gonna dream about the time when I'm-"_

The four faltered suddenly, looking at the short waterfall and creek that abruptly cut off the trail.

Mason, ever-talkative, simply messaged a hazardous symbol in agreement.

Gaz's eyes flickered back to Wheels.

"It's okay, man", she said with a nasal inflection, "We'll find another way around it, or a bridge."

"Nah, I got this, you guys." he said, shielding his eyes and looking over across the gap, "I think I can make this."

Mason played a car engine revving in cheer while Wheels rolled back and forth a few times, driving a rut through the mud and cutting to the solid foundation, then, suddenly, jumped the creek and landed with a thumbs-up on the other side.

Sandy shrugged.

"Well, I guess that's our cue." she said, skipping over the waterfall and landing neatly on one of the stones the trailmaster had set in, each with a notable animal paw imprinted in them .

The others easily followed, but Sherman, the last to join them, misjudged the depth of the creek and fell to his shoulders, hitting hard against the edge of the shallower stream. Mason offered his hand, and he took it, but once he stood, dripping, onto the stones, the others looked at him with wide eyes.

"What is it?" he asked, tilting his head.

Wheels stuttered.

"It's gonna be okay, Sherman...but you might not be able to come on our hiking trip next week."

"Why?"

Gaz facepalmed.

"I'll be frank with you. Sherman, you're grounded forever. You broke the whistle-thing your dad gave you, you know, the one he said never to break? Yeah, you broke it."

He shrugged and took off his sopping-wet t-shirt.

"It's probably not too bad, people always think it's broken." he rambled, wringing out his shirt and looking at the item in particular.

"Oh…. _Oh._ " The dog whistle around his neck was crushed flat almost unrecognizably. It was true, he _could_ tell Mr. Peabody and get in a minor amount of trouble for it….but, of course, who said Mr. Peabody had to know?

With a slight tremble in his hands, he tucked it inside his shirt and crossed the stream.

"It'll be fine."

 _Tier Five_

It was not fine.

Mr. Peabody had called every child-service center and friend he could think of, but no matter what, Sherman had been lost to the streets of New York City.

" _No_ " he told himself, breathing in deeply, " _No, don't think like that, he's probably...just at the shelter with his grandparents."_

Except the shelter had been called several times, and even his military-trained father hadn't reported a trace of Sherman's scent in a three-mile radius.

Wringing his paws in frustration...and irritation...and pure worry alone, he fell back to the chairs bordering the island in the kitchen. He had trained his son well, and, of course, all he knew he had to do when he was lost was blow the dog whistle he never left without.

It was a simple system, to be sure.

And so, he found himself wondering for the third time that day, why couldn't children be the same?

############################

"H-hello? My name is Sherman Peabody and...and I was wondering if I could call my father?"

The attendant jerked her thumb towards the waiting room.

"You're at the wrong place, boy. This is Hardrock Orphanage. _Orphanage._ Ain't no kid here got a father."

The boy's fists trembled by his sides. This was, definitely, where the bad kids went...and, although he wasn't a bad kid, he was undoubtedly a horrible son.

"I got lost and….it's raining outside…..I really need to call him, please…?"

"Get lost, kid."

And there it went. A simple misturn, endless alleys of confused wandering, and the last resort fallen, all because he was too dumb to find his way back from the hike on foot and too stubborn to accept his father's car trip back and admit he'd broken the whistle. What was it he'd said in his last text, before the battery had run down? I'll walk back, be home by dinner, love you….something like that.

Hot, salty, tears welled in his eyes and bit down his cheeks, and Sherman cried.

####################

He had run away, it had to be the only solution. No phone calls, not a sound of the whistle, not even a report from any of the neighbors….but what was there to run away from? He'd always been, at least, a father worthy of any….right?

#######################

Hoofprints.

The pony had been safely restabled after that night at the ice cream parlor with nothing more than a telltale series of muddy hoofprints, so logically, if Mr. Peabody had really wanted to look for him, there'd be some sort of sign that progress was being made, right? A series of pawprints, a scent, a pin from his bow tie…..

Despite his best efforts, the conclusion was evident, staring the ten-year-old in the face. His father was the amazing Mr. Peabody, a genius of space and time, a holder (as he had once told the boy with a sly wink) of about a zillion PhDs.

If Mr. Peabody really wanted him so badly, he would have found him by now.

There was no other way around it.

###########################

"Sherman? _Sherman…._ "

The cold rains bit against his light fur, each drop a painful reminder of how his son had loved the bleak weather, always safely inside with a mug of hot chocolate in his hands watching the precipitation hit the glass windows with delight. Even as an infant, the sounds of the raindrops pattering against the apartment had calmed him easily to sleep, hugging Mr. Peabody's bow tie to his chest in contentment.

It was not with a dawning realization, but with a smack, that Mr. Peabody realized where he'd gone wrong. It wasn't that he hadn't put enough effort into securing the proper boundaries to qualify as a typical citizen, but that his son wanted a father, no matter the form.

In short, Sherman would want to see his guardian not as a human, but as a dog.

###############################

The boy looked up.

"Mr. Peabody?" he faltered weakly, looking towards the figure in the alleyway.

" _Sherman!"_

The shadow bounded towards him on all fours, knocking the delighted child to the ground.

"Sherman, are you alright? I locked onto your scent around that dreadful orphanage, and I was afraid you'd decided to run away…"

He laughed wanly and got to his feet, shaking the alley's mud off his knees.

"Yeah, I...I...oh."

His smile fell, and he touched one hand to his chest sadly.

"I'm really sorry, Mr. Peabody...I broke…" seemingly on the verge of lapsing back into tears, he took a deep breath and went on, "I broke the whistle and I knew you'd be mad."

"Sherman, you _maniac,_ why on _Earth_ would you think I'd be _mad_?"

The redhead took a step back warily.

"Remember….that time I broke my ankle, and you made me go to that place with all the strangers in coats and all the tests and you never came to visit me?"

The beagle scratched his chin in thought.

"Ah, yes, that was a while ago….do you not know what that place was?"

He shook his head.

"I suppose I usually do treat you myself, but that was a hospital, and all of those people were doctors there to help you mend the broken bone. You must believe me when I say that I tried to come every day you were there, but alas, they had a no-dogs-allowed policy."

"So…." he said, scrubbing tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand, "...you don't hate me, even though I'm the worst and I kept messing up and breaking stuff?"

"Sherman", his guardian said, nuzzling his cherry-red hair, "The only thing you really broke this time was my heart."

"But I fixed it, right?"

"Of course, and you'll always be the perfect son to me."

"Forever and always?"

"Forever and always."


End file.
